The final day of qualifying for the World Championship takes place on Wednesday when the last eight qualifiers for the main event draw will be determined on what is sure to be an extremely dramatic day of snooker.
16 players will compete over the best of 19 frames to take their place in the draw alongside the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Neil Robertson and the defending champion Mark Selby who are already there. Four of the eight matches will be streamed while the other four will be part of the Judgement Day coverage on the World Snooker YouTube and Facebook pages.
Streamed Matches
The highest ranked player on show on Wednesday is Hossein Vafaei. The Shootout champion will look to secure his qualification to the Crucible for the first time in his career when he takes on the lowly ranked Chinese player Lei Peifan. Dave Gilbert is also a tournament winner this season having landed the Championship League crown. He is one match from ending his campaign at the World Championship but in order for that to happen he will need to get the better of Anthony Hamilton.
The other tournament winner from this season who is on show on Wednesday is Robert Milkins. His win at the Gibraltar Open last month wasn’t enough to get him to the Crucible by right but he is one win from getting there. That will have to come against Noppon Saengkham who has qualified for the main draw before and will be looking to do it again. The other streamed match sees the two former world finalists Ali Carter and Matthew Stevens who will go at it for a place in the main draw.
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Other Four Matches
The British Open and Players Championship semi-finalist Jimmy Robertson is probably the pick of the players who will need to be followed on the YouTube coverage on Wednesday. He meets Chris Wakelin while Liam Highfield will take on Yuan Sijun for a place in the main draw. The former has already come through a deciding frame in this qualifying event so he’ll be confident that he can hold his nerve over this 19 frame battle.
Graeme Dott is the only player on show on Wednesday who has already won this tournament. He blitzed into this final qualifying round but he’ll take on a man in Jamie Clarke who was equally as impressive in his win in the previous round. The other match sees David Grace looking to qualify for the tournament which is just down the road from him. He faces Jackson Page who is looking to be at the Crucible for the first time in his career.
Betting
I’ve already got two players backed in this set of matches having taken Yuan Sijun and Robert Milkins to qualify for the main draw before qualifying started. They play Liam Highfield and Noppon Saengkham respective and are both favourites to win their matches which means I’m on them at much bigger prices than they currently are. I’m pretty happy to let them run and hope that both will come through. I’ll take one other bet though.
That comes in one of the matches away from the streamed tables. Jackson Page has done wonderfully well to make it this far from the first qualifying round but I think his campaign ends here. I say that because although he hasn’t had a fantastic season by any means, David Grace has scored very well in this qualifying campaign. You could argue he hasn’t beaten much in Iulian Boiko and Xiao Guodong but Page has only beaten a Joe Perry who by his own admission never showed up in that match. Grace is a tough player to beat over the longer distances as we saw when he made the UK Championship semi-finals a few seasons ago. Page has come through nicely so far but in three matches he has made just eight breaks over 50. In two games Grace has made nine. He is scoring better than Page and I’ve got to think if this turns into a scrappy encounter he’ll have the edge in the tactical department too so I’m happy to be on Grace at 10/11.
Tips
Back D.Grace to beat J.Page for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Back him here:
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